The third and easiest of the three Championship “heats” puzzles, I thought, I saved a few minutes against my allowance of twenty for this one.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
EDIT: I had assumed this was the third puzzle in the Championship heats, as we were advised that this would be the Plan by the editor. But it doesn’t actually say so today. Could someone who was at the event (and can remember the puzzle!) please confirm or deny.
EDIT to edit: confirmed below this was puzzle 3 of the heat.
| Across | |
| 1 | Pass through edges of thoroughfare packed with partygoers (8) |
| TRAVERSE – TE (edges of thoroughfare) with RAVERS inserted. | |
| 5 | Front component removed from funny eyepiece (6) |
| OCULAR – [J]OCULAR | |
| 10 | Ignoring the odds, tell couple to run off together (5) |
| ELOPE – alternate letters as above. | |
| 11 | Bird — a crow, say — possibly eating spiders at first (9) |
| CASSOWARY – (A CROW SAY)* with S[piders] inserted. | |
| 12 | Cultured Liberal taken in by long set of policies (5,4) |
| PARTY LINE – PINE (long) has ARTY and L inserted. | |
| 13 | The best European diet (5) |
| ELITE – E[uropean], LITE = diet as in e.g. Coke. | |
| 14 | Gentleman left ring burning for some meat (7) |
| SIRLOIN – SIR (gentleman) L[eft], O (ring) IN (burning e.g. a fire is in). | |
| 16 | Thick slice of bread I put safely back (6) |
| STUPID – hidden reversed. | |
| 18 | Family-friendly car in close to immaculate condition (6) |
| ESTATE – E (end of immaculate) STATE (condition). | |
| 20 | Exasperated PA losing head in front of journalist (7) |
| ANNOYED – PA here meaning public address system, TANNOY, loses its head | |
| 22 | After knocking back ten, was the boss tipsy? (5) |
| OILED – OI (10 reversed) LED (was the boss). | |
| 23 | Every single carriage fitted with extremely snazzy, comfy seat (4,5) |
| EASY CHAIR – EA (each, every) S[ingle], CHAIR (carriage as in sedan chair?) insert Y the end of snazzy. | |
| 25 | Shelter to use here in a storm (9) |
| TREEHOUSE – (TO USE HERE)*. | |
| 26 | Festivities drag in the end, unfortunately (5) |
| GALAS – [dra]G, ALAS = unfortunately. | |
| 27 | Bearing in mind love liberates hearts (6) |
| NOTING – NOTHING (love) loses H. | |
| 28 | Unruly individual crude after drink? Indeed! (8) |
| TEARAWAY – TEA (drink) RAW (crude) AY (indeed!) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Step required to break lock and gain unlawful entry (8) |
| TRESPASS -TRESS (lock of hair) has PAS (step) inserted. | |
| 2 | Grieve endlessly following a romantic affair (5) |
| AMOUR – A, MOUR[N]. | |
| 3 | Terribly nervy when on date, sometimes (5,3,3,4) |
| EVERY NOW AND THEN – (NERVY WHEN ON DATE)*. | |
| 4 | Piece of bagel placed in dry container (7) |
| SECTION – SEC (dry) TIN (container) insert O for bagel, zero in tennis. | |
| 6 | You almost succeeded locating obscure novel (5,3,2,5) |
| CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR – (LOCATING OBSCURE)*. | |
| 7 | Current facility supporting large debt (9) |
| LIABILITY – L[arge] I (current) ABILITY (facility). | |
| 8 | Welsh chap inviting me in for chips and dips for two (6) |
| RHYMES – Welsh chap is RHYS, insert ME. Took me a while to see the definition after going through my list of Welshmen. | |
| 9 | Valuable things like TVs? (6) |
| ASSETS – AS (like) SETS (TVs). | |
| 15 | Tough soldiers not speaking about the final part of WWII (9) |
| RESILIENT – RE (soldiers) SILENT, insert I the end of WWII. | |
| 17 | One horribly sad year, it seems to me (1,4,3) |
| I DARE SAY – I (one), (SAD YEAR)*. | |
| 19 | Joke always largely upset square (4,2) |
| EVEN UP – all reversed, PUN (joke) EVE[r] = always largely. | |
| 20 | Author mostly concerned with having no luxuries (7) |
| AUSTERE – AUSTE[n] = author mostly, RE = concerned with. | |
| 21 | American city gift stores selling tat, primarily (6) |
| BOSTON – BOON (gift) with S T inserted. | |
| 24 | Tolerate everything that hurts! (5) |
| ALLOW – ALL (everything) OW! that hurts. | |
Nice puzzle.
I’m a big Jane Austen fan but oddly it was Paul Auster who came to mind when I was solving the clue an author with whom I have only a passing acquaintance. Funny how the mind works …
Quick for me.
Thanks Jalna and Pip
Time taken: 22:22
19.30. Certainly seemed the easiest of the three but had a few issues. SW corner was the last to be finished when I finally worked out oiled( as opposed to axled my first, rather dim idea) following which Bawston and noting yielded.
Liked rhymes and aforesaid oiled.
Ths setter and blogger.
17.01 with a typo
Genuine typo this time rather than an error.
For some reason LIABILITY held me up at the end. Otherwise excellent fare
Thanks Pip and Jalna